TALLAHASSEE—The Florida Department of Corrections today recognizes and applauds our members who have been awarded Florida TaxWatch Prudential Productivity Awards for their innovative and fiscally responsible initiatives. The awarded members displayed innovation and accountability through efforts such as creating a sewing program that promotes re-entry efforts while reducing costs, and establishing a Correctional Probation Officer Recruit Academy to enhance public safety. These initiatives produced an estimated cost-avoidance of more than $350,000.

Secretary Julie Jones said, “The Department congratulates these employees for creating innovative solutions which promote fiscal accountability while supporting the Department’s mission and values. We applaud their commitment to excellence and service to the state of Florida.”

The Prudential Productivity Awards program publicly recognizes and rewards state employees whose work significantly and measurably increases productivity and promotes innovation to improve the delivery of state services and save money for Florida taxpayers and businesses.

The Department’s 2016 Prudential Productivity Award Winners:

FDC NWFRC Laundry Team
David Cochran, Leisa Sweatt, Derrick White

Sergeant D. Cochran and his team established a sewing program called “Stitch by Stitch” at Northwest Florida Reception Center (NWFRC). This program produces quality inmate clothing at a drastically reduced cost while boosting the Department’s re-entry efforts by providing a marketable skill to inmates that will help them to successfully re-enter society upon their release. The team’s method of teaching challenges and motivates the inmates to take pride in the quality and quantity of the clothing they produce. By purchasing quality materials at competitive prices, and using the skills of the inmates to make inmate pants, shirts, boxers, laundry bags, mattress covers and pillow cases, the team was able to save NWFRC more than $75,000 during 2014–2015. Sergeant Cochran has shared this program with other institutions in an effort to promote statewide cost savings.

To meet the demands associated with recruiting and training new probation officers, Community Corrections Regional Director Michael Anderson, Deputy Regional Director Brian Wynns and Lavena Barnett set to establish a recruit academy to supplement the lone correctional probation recruit academy in Orlando prior to October 2014. After months of hard work, the first Correctional Probation Officer Recruit Academy was held at Florida Corrections Academy in Orlando on October 20, 2014, with 35 new recruits. Two additional academies have been held since. These academies have added approximately 90 new certified probation officers to the field. The establishment of this new academy allowed the Department to recognize a cost avoidance of more than $270,000 in fiscal year 2014–2015 while training nearly 100 new probation officers to keep Florida’s communities safe.

To learn more about the Florida TaxWatch Prudential Productivity Awards, please visit http://goo.gl/OCMCIt.

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As Florida's largest state agency, the Department of Corrections employs 24,000 members statewide, incarcerates approximately 98,000 inmates and supervises nearly 140,000 offenders in the community.